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Only new features, please!

Give us an update to fix existing incomplete features while we wait for the new stuff

A mixture of some new features and fixed existing features

[MrWiggles]

From some of the general bitchiness coming from the replies to this thread, it seems like the main thrust of the OP was completely overlooked in trying to knit pick the details. Yes, it would be nice to have a round, or several, of bug fixes and general housekeeping. A feature that doesn't work is not a feature, its a bug. A work around is not a feature, its an exploit. (Quantum stockpiling, water reactors, ect) One the the main points about exploits is that if people are using them, you need to find out WHY they are using them and fix the root issue as well as removing the exploit in particular. So, while I may not agree with all of the items the OP listed particularly, I do agree that a series of releases related to bug fixes and other items would be good.

Particularly things that directly impact the game play/performance. Personally, I would love to get a release that doesn't send me into FPS death. To me, that is the one item that should probably be #1 on the dev list as it doesn't matter what features of the game you use, you are still affected by the FPS problem. A lot of the cool possibilities with the game are also curtailed because of this. (Imagine making a fort that took up the whole embark tile instead of a 4x4 or 6x6 chunk of it...) Most of the time on the suggestion thread we talk about new features that we would like to see implemented, interface complaints and such, mainly because we all believe that Toady is aware of all the routine normal problems and doesn't need to be reminded. I don't necessarily think it is fair to bash the OP because he did what we normally take for granted as a given.

Are we forgetting, or simply overlooking that 31.25 is after a round of bug testing? 31.19 was Release  One of the Caravan Arc. He had 6 big bug fixes release. This release is new features, which, as every release contains, more bug fixes.

Again, I have to go back to how we dont know things are interconnected in dwarf fortress. This pertains to bugs, or incomplete feature sets. We dont know what is an easy fix, or what fixing a bug now means, in the near future.

And Toady is mindful of the FPS. He stated he's using using testing programs to find big knots in the game and work them out. In release 31.24 he posted a minor fix.

Optimizing now, would probably more of a waste of time, then anything, as when Toady gets back to moving forward on the game, that'll pretty start to decline and render all the optimization pointless.

Personally, I play on 5x5 embarkments with 200 dorfs, and everything on, and I'm fine with FPS.

--------------------

Thanks to those that you who've replied so far.

The poster immediately above me (ravaught) summarises the thrust of my post very well. I'll admit that the very short list of examples that I gave was weak in places (functionally, the game is fine without wagon, for instance), my point was that there are many features that are currently non-functional that previously worked fine. Ravaught makes an excellent point that workarounds and exploits are used because there's a problem, rather than because there's an opportunity.

MrWiggles, yes, I'm a forum reader and user. I'll admit that nobles aren't always popular and people have posted extensive research both here and on the wiki on how to get rid of them. But they're still part of the game and the "fun".

I'm aware that there's a deeper Grand Plan behind Dwarf Fortress, and I understand that I can't appriciate the fullness of where certain parts of the game are going. But I've also worked with programmers who can put a good enough skin on almost any solution so it can appear to the user that the problem has gone away when its really being fixed in a very different way. This is just the natural way problems get solved sometimes.

L.

I wouldnt want cosmetic fixes. It'd prefer if they're complete or fix, not appear to be fix. And just because that is a programming method, doesnt mean its Toady programming method.

[Putnam]

Have you ever heard of the Dev log?

Have you ever heard of friendlyness you ...................................................?

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[ravaught]

Are we forgetting, or simply overlooking that 31.25 is after a round of bug testing? 31.19 was Release  One of the Caravan Arc. He had 6 big bug fixes release. This release is new features, which, as every release contains, more bug fixes.

Again, I have to go back to how we dont know things are interconnected in dwarf fortress. This pertains to bugs, or incomplete feature sets. We dont know what is an easy fix, or what fixing a bug now means, in the near future.

I am not forgetting nor overlooking the fact that bug fixes have been released in the past. That does not change the fact that there are still plenty more that could be ironed out before moving forward. More more features you add on, the more features you have to rework. I never mentioned that any of the bug fixes that need to happen would be 'easy fixes'. However, if you can not determine what fixing a bug now means, or in the near future, then there is something fundamentally wrong. Toady seems to have his head on pretty straight, and seems to be fairly well organized. But here is a simple, fundamental truth for any kind of engineering, software or not. If you build on a weak foundation you will have a weak structure all the way up. And what's worse, is that once you build on top it is often much much more difficult to fix the underlying structure for two reasons. The more you have built up, the more that is dependent on what is beneath. And the more things that are happening, the harder it is to spot the ones that are happening incorrectly and causing issues. That is the main reason why I agree with the OP that as many bugs as possible should be ironed out before adding new feature. But, then again, that is just my opinion and DF is Toady's baby.

And Toady is mindful of the FPS. He stated he's using using testing programs to find big knots in the game and work them out. In release 31.24 he posted a minor fix.

Optimizing now, would probably more of a waste of time, then anything, as when Toady gets back to moving forward on the game, that'll pretty start to decline and render all the optimization pointless.

Personally, I play on 5x5 embarkments with 200 dorfs, and everything on, and I'm fine with FPS.

 I play on a 5x5 embark, and can get to about 150 before I am down to around 20FPS. I'm not playing on a computer that is exactly a piece of crap, but its not top of the line either. As for optimizing being a waste of time, I disagree. If the code base is as tight as he can get it, then as he adds features, memory leaks and 'knots' will stand out that much more. If the code remains 'knotted' then it will be harder to spot new problems as the arise. I'm not much of a programmer, though, and I don't claim to be, but I do know how iterative design works.

[Andrew425]

I don't know about you guys but I actually like nobles and their demands and I kinda wish that their were more of them.

And I think its fair to say that it would be nice for toady to work on some of the long stand standing issues

[Silverionmox]

The item that is most in need of fixing, imo, is the responsiveness of the military. When you send a squad somewhere, 2 of them are sleeping, 2 of them are eating, 2 of them are drinking, 2 of them are checking their chests, and the 2 that do arrive at the problem spot do so minutes apart. And half the time they're not properly trained anyway because of the same reason, and get ripped to pieces instantly. You can try to call them to a safe spot and wait until they're complete, but by the time everyone is there, half of the squad is hungry, thirsty or sleepy.

[Luge]

I don't believe that's something that needs fixing, Silverionmox. If you have militia on active duty, then they WILL all be in the same barracks room or sleeping, and will arrive at your instructed point at the same time. If the dwarves aren't on active duty, they will of course be scattered around the fortress and have to arrive from different places as they rush to strap on armour and grabs weapons.

Anyway...

The more features that are added to the core engine, the harder it gets for any programmer to find and fix the 3000+ reported problems that are in the buglist. The last release was 6 months ago, and believe me when I say I'm drooling over the idea of the upcoming zombie attacks on my fortress, but I'd still like the original features to work.

L.

[MrWiggles]

What are the original features?

[Silverionmox]

I don't believe that's something that needs fixing, Silverionmox. If you have militia on active duty, then they WILL all be in the same barracks room or sleeping, and will arrive at your instructed point at the same time. If the dwarves aren't on active duty, they will of course be scattered around the fortress and have to arrive from different places as they rush to strap on armour and grabs weapons.

As I said, even when giving the time to regroup at a safe rally point, I'm waiting basically forever. 40d was much more responsive in that regard, because now soldiers come and go back again as if they were civilians. The first four may arrive, but by the time the next four are there, the first two are hungry again, and so on. Soldiers on call ought to be considered adrenaline rushed, so they ignore their hunger, sleep and desire for chest checking until they're of no use in combat anymore. They simply can't use the civilian clock for their bodily needs.

[Yeesh]

I always found clothes to be too much micromanaging. Plus, naked dwarfs make for excellent fear-factor in your enemies.

That's cute and all, but for the naked dwarf issue to still be around after all this time is really annoying. Look at all the steps that can be involved in tailoring pants: Plant and grow pig tail from seeds, harvest it and process it into thread, dye it at the dyers, weave it into cloth at the loom, sew it into pants at the clothier's, and to be extra fancy, sew a leather or cloth image into them. That's a lot of care to put into a process which is completely pointless if your dwarfs are going to run around bare-bottomed anyway. It just seems like such a big deal to me that I'm very surprised it still hasn't been addressed.

So a little reminder isn't a terrible idea.
 

[MrWiggles]

I don't believe that's something that needs fixing, Silverionmox. If you have militia on active duty, then they WILL all be in the same barracks room or sleeping, and will arrive at your instructed point at the same time. If the dwarves aren't on active duty, they will of course be scattered around the fortress and have to arrive from different places as they rush to strap on armour and grabs weapons.

As I said, even when giving the time to regroup at a safe rally point, I'm waiting basically forever. 40d was much more responsive in that regard, because now soldiers come and go back again as if they were civilians. The first four may arrive, but by the time the next four are there, the first two are hungry again, and so on. Soldiers on call ought to be considered adrenaline rushed, so they ignore their hunger, sleep and desire for chest checking until they're of no use in combat anymore. They simply can't use the civilian clock for their bodily needs.

You're just managing your military dorfs poorly. This is really an aside to the conversation; but Military dorfs are slow to train when they're training from scratch. I and other found, that if you bring a trained military dorf, training goes much faster.

Are you setting them on duty every month? Is every member of the squad on duty every month? Are you setting any of the months to train?

For an early military, I place my miners, wood cutters, in a squad, set each month to off duty. When I active the squad, they always come a running. For later militaries, if you manage their Monthly rotation, and squad members on duty, you'll find them much more responsive.

----
The 40d military, was just barely there. I cant stand to use 40d military, I've grown to attach to custom alerts, burrows, and none lethal training.

[Jacob/Lee]

I, for one, would like to see wagons back. It gives more room for me to dump my useless shit "expert craftsdwarfship" and still make a quick urist.

[Silverionmox]

I don't believe that's something that needs fixing, Silverionmox. If you have militia on active duty, then they WILL all be in the same barracks room or sleeping, and will arrive at your instructed point at the same time. If the dwarves aren't on active duty, they will of course be scattered around the fortress and have to arrive from different places as they rush to strap on armour and grabs weapons.

As I said, even when giving the time to regroup at a safe rally point, I'm waiting basically forever. 40d was much more responsive in that regard, because now soldiers come and go back again as if they were civilians. The first four may arrive, but by the time the next four are there, the first two are hungry again, and so on. Soldiers on call ought to be considered adrenaline rushed, so they ignore their hunger, sleep and desire for chest checking until they're of no use in combat anymore. They simply can't use the civilian clock for their bodily needs.

You're just managing your military dorfs poorly. This is really an aside to the conversation; but Military dorfs are slow to train when they're training from scratch. I and other found, that if you bring a trained military dorf, training goes much faster.

Are you setting them on duty every month? Is every member of the squad on duty every month? Are you setting any of the months to train?

For an early military, I place my miners, wood cutters, in a squad, set each month to off duty. When I active the squad, they always come a running. For later militaries, if you manage their Monthly rotation, and squad members on duty, you'll find them much more responsive.

----
The 40d military, was just barely there. I cant stand to use 40d military, I've grown to attach to custom alerts, burrows, and none lethal training.

They're on training duty three months, one month break, and so on. 6/10 required. Most dwarves I recruit already have military skills of varying quality. They exchange some weapon experience (useless, since they have other weapons) but the other skills never seem to get trained.

I certainly think the military reform was a big jump forward, but that big step requires some balancing still to work as intended IMO.

[Kogut]

The item that is most in need of fixing, imo, is the responsiveness of the military. When you send a squad somewhere, 2 of them are sleeping, 2 of them are eating, 2 of them are drinking, 2 of them are checking their chests, and the 2 that do arrive at the problem spot do so minutes apart. And half the time they're not properly trained anyway because of the same reason, and get ripped to pieces instantly. You can try to call them to a safe spot and wait until they're complete, but by the time everyone is there, half of the squad is hungry, thirsty or sleepy.

Sorry, it is feature request, because current bahaviour is intended. Bugs are getting ridiculous. There are binary patches made by players.

[PTTG??]

The other noble positions, nah, they dont add anything to the game really.

Nobles are the "score" of the game. If you're able to keep three levels of nobles happy, that's more impressive than two. They are supposed to be a resource sink.

[Martholomule]

The other noble positions, nah, they dont add anything to the game really.

Nobles are the "score" of the game. If you're able to keep three levels of nobles happy, that's more impressive than two. They are supposed to be a resource sink.

Also the "power-up".  I can't live without my manager or bookkeeper, for example.  I've got a nice red carpet rotting in the entryway, just waiting for the second coming of the Dungeon Master.  DM, come back to me!  (i won't use the workarounds, it's just not appealing to me)